Sacrament Meeting - by Warren

There is an hour a week when the family sits together in chairs set up like pews and we pray, sing, take the sacrament, and listen to spiritual messages. It's an important hour for any Latter-day Saint because the entire family is together, and we renew our promises with God.

When Diana was first born, the priorities were simple. We did whatever we could to make her comfortable, entertained, and happy without being too distracting to everyone else. Sometimes this meant walking out of sacrament meeting.



Now Diana is 14 months old, and it's different. She understands more, wants more, moves a lot more, and has some self control.


With many things, she has responded very well to "training." Like, she used to bite when she was angry, but every time she did we gave her an immediate time out in the crib. Now, instead of biting, she blows raspberries. I put "training" in quotation marks because I think the word implies manipulation, as if she was a puppy or something that lacked self-deterministic power. Of course, to some extent that is true at her age. Either way I prefer to think of it as good communication - since we don't talk so well right now, a timeout is the best way we have to communicate that something is bad.

Anyway, back to the point. Inasmuch as Diana is capable, we want her to learn in her youth that sacrament meeting is sweet. Some Jewish traditions let children chew on pages of the Torah dipped in honey. We let her eat bananas, gold fish, and all sorts of things. Sometimes that keeps her happy in sacrament meeting and sometimes not.

We recognize that our relationship with Diana is much more important than any particular technique. But, right now, we have two basic rules for Diana. They have had mixed success, but we realize that we've done her a disservice not being very consistent with her. (In part, by not communicating with each other as well as we thought.) One, if she moves more than an arm's length away from us, we will bring her back as lovingly as we can. And two, if she screams we will immediately bring her out to the hallway and give her an un-fun, thirty second time out in the corner, constantly repeating in word, tone and facial expression, "No shouting."

The truth is, we are still struggling. Sunday at church is hard for Diana. We are less consistent about sleep, food, water, and freedom than the rest of the week. Perhaps, the only thing harder on Diana is being in the car seat. Diana is a great baby and we're very blessed to have her. Some people reading this blog have their hands full with plenty more than our one angelic daughter. How do you handle Sunday sacrament meetings?

Smith Thanksgiving Bonanza 2008

Here's the moment you've all been waiting for: Smith Family Thanksgiving 2008!


Hands down, it was the awesomest thing you've ever seen. We had ribs, salad, water, love, chinese dumplings, green bean casserole, gravy, and some other things that we didn't take pictures of. It was DELICIOUS.

And here's the rest of Thanksgiving in a nutshell:

Until next post...

Church choir, a micocosm of church life. - by Warren

Some say that sports is a microcosm of life. At least as much, church choir is a microcosm of life in a Latter-day Saint congregation. I think that church choir represents some of my favorite dynamics of the LDS church.

There is a choir director. It is often obvious that the choir director is not the best singer or leader and sometimes not even musically inclined. Usually, no one knows why the choir director was chosen - not even the choir director or the person doing the choosing. Despite what may be musical inadequacies, the choir performs much better when they take their noses out of their own books and watch/follow the director.

The choir members are an eclectic bunch. Some sing well, others sing less well, and their self-perceptions are often misleading. No matter what skill level, choir members are accepted and challenged to improve.

When I first started participating church choirs I didn't know that there were different parts. Learning a non-melody part is still difficult for me, but Emily is super patient and an inspiring teacher. We are preparing for a Christmas show and, because Emily is my wife, I'm expected to learn the parts so that others can follow ME! For those of you that have been in choirs with me, you can see the irony. But, I'm working outside my comfort zone and learning.

I now know that parts are a beautiful thing about choir. Many parts aren't very pretty alone. Some are downright weird. But, everyone is united in the hope that the composer knew best and that somehow, their awkward part will fit into a greater whole.

Sometimes, there is a temptation to tell the director what to do or covet another part. A member can mistakenly feel both inadequate and superior. There are problems uniting all those voices, showing up on time (or at all), and following the director.

Through the years, I have learned to love choir, and my congregations. When I was 11-ish I remember, clear as ever, walking home from school and telling myself that when I'm 18, I wouldn't have to go to church anymore. Oh, how things have changed. I guess in some sense I was right, I don't have to. But something changed since then, and I wouldn't ever choose not to participate.

I know that this post can be confusing for someone not familiar with the LDS church. That wasn't my intention. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

Sunday, November 23rd, by Warren Smith

Today, they called two new Sunday School teachers. That means that I am no longer needed as a substitute. Sad. But, that meant that I was able to attend primary. Emily is a jewel. Last night we were up until past midnight reading. I asked her what she needed to do for primary today. Her response was, "Just prepare a singing time." That sounded simple enough. She drew a large turkey cutout with songs names and dozens of cutout feathers. The children were playing a pin-the-feather-on-the-turkey-to-pick-the-next-song game. When did she do that?!? Is there some slow-down-time-so-that-I-can-create-a-cool-craft-for-primary machine that I don't know about? If there is, I totally want to know about it.

After church, we came home to see HOWARD! It's been a great day. Right now he's out with Leah, who is teaching him how to drive. Howard just got his motorcycle license in Texas, but it turns out that you need a normal driver's license first. No problem. They just gave him a normal driver's license. (Without an exam.) He doesn't know how to drive, of course, so Leah is teaching him now. (In defense of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, they did put a restriction on his license that someone 21 years or older needs to be in the car.)

Lately, Diana is showing motherly tendencies. By that I mean, she wants to be the one feeding other people and holding the tissue to other people's noses. Today, when we were putting her to bed, she opened a drawer and found a bottle of skin lotion. Then she insisted on putting it in my mouth like a bottle over and over again. That was cute. Then she learned to take the cap off. I had to draw the line somewhere, and globs of pink skin lotion in my mouth seemed as good a line as any other.

Have you ever wanted to improve your Scottish? Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrCMB7N5V1s

Costco

Diana really likes to push the cart. It's adorable. She can't see where she's going, of course, and we have to steer it for her, but she can push the cart for many many baby minutes. Sometimes we can't stop to look at something - at least not both of us - because the cart must go on. The best we can do is try to loiter. That didn't work too well today because Costco was so busy.

Emily and I went for a little run. Very little. Emily told me that the prime running ages are 25-35! The last few days it has inspired my curiosity, but not my feet. Are my best running days still ahead of me? Maybe even years ahead of me? It seems so hopeful. A delightful thought.

If you need something else to read or watch: http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/same-sex-marriage-and-proposition-8

A love story

Yesterday was my parent's 32nd wedding anniversary. We all (Mom, Dad, Emily, Diana, and I) went out to eat. It was fun listening to them tell us their story again. For those of you who haven't heard it, I'll give you some of the highlights. Mom was born and bred in Vietnam. Dad in New York. In 1975, Dad joined the army reserves and Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese - causing Mom and her family to flee. Lot's of things happened in between Vietnam and a refugee camp in Washington DC, but those details are for the epic version. As a reservist, dad was doing his two weeks of service when he was transferred to the refugee camp to supervise the education. Using a "computer" (it was "programmed" with index cards) he found a list of Vietnamese people who were qualified to help with camp education. Mom came out on top of the list. That's how they met.

Skipper's log, 11-20

Last night we had pizza. Emily made it. I like Emily's pizza. It had pepperoni. Diana likes it too.

Emily and Diana went to the library for story time. Diana watched the other kids and danced. I was not actually there, but I'm sure it was cute.

Em took out a book on running. I realize that I've never read a book on running. After all these years of running, I never learned anything, but by experience and what other runners would tell me. Some of that information is conflicting too. Like when is it bad to run with pain? And when is it necessary to improve?

Last night, I was able to visit the Monter family. They're my hometeachees and they are GREAT! Brother Monter was just ordained an Elder on Sunday. It's is very exciting. Sister Monter's friend asked her a question that she passed on to me. I now pass that question on to you: Why does God let innocent children suffer?

Captain's blog, stardate 11-18

Welcome to the Smith Family's blog. My name is Emily, and I will be guiding you through the first post. Please note the bright orange background color of the blog. That is in honor of Thanksgiving. In general, orange is a hideous color, but when used to honor Thanksgiving, it acquires an element of the sacred.

The Smith Family is planning to spend this Thanksgiving at home in Tucson. Warren's brothers are flying in to visit us, and hopefully Joseph as well... We'll be doing a lot of over-eating and much too little exercising. Well, that's my plan. More will be forthcoming.

Warren still doesn't have cancer. And I might not either! At least not anymore. We'll see after the c-t scan on Friday.

Oh, and I think Diana's a mutant. She's growing much faster than a regular human being should.

She was bitten by a dog last week, but luckily it was only a mean little mexican chihuahua. As far as I can tell, there was no lasting physical trauma.

Well that's it for now. I hope you enjoyed it--romance, action, and a great moral. Join us next time for another Smith Family adventure.